The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. – Day One

The Good.

Let’s start things of with the good.

Paul Stafford.

The first speaker was a great open to my first Semi Permanent. Paul Stafford, Co-founder and CEO of Design Studio. What I really enjoyed about Stafford’s talk was his how he went through redesigning the brand and logos for Airbnb and the Premier League.

The main point I really picked up on was how he explained that the Brand can Live, Breathe, and Change.

His thought process behind creating the symbol and logo for these companies was to understand them, and what they do. It’s important to understand who they are and what needs to be amplified. To do this he interviewed stakeholders, which includes everyone in the business, not just the people representing the brand who say what they think the brand is.

With Airbnb they included the most important aspects of the company into the logo, this way the brand is truly represented.

Another important part of redesigning logos/brands is the image itself. While needing to accurately portray a brand’s identity in the logo, it is also important to consider the balance of the logo, whether or not it can be inverted, how the logo will transfer across, screen and material, as well as stand amongst other logos/apps without becoming lost.

With the old Premier League logo it’s obvious to see how messy it is which in turn results in how easy it is to become lost amongst other logos, and difficulty to represent the brands character across a multitude of materials.

The new logo has been refined down to what people identify the logo and the brand with the most. Hundreds of drawings lead to this certain brand representation to achieve the right balance, and ensure the logo doesn’t appear too arrogant. Finding this balance and brand representation ensure that the logo was able to be transferred across different platforms (shown in the above images).

Overall I found that this speaker was very helpful and made me want to go over my logo i have created and play around with the design to ensure it holds all these elements and represents me creatively and truthfully.

Tea Uglow

“Without doubt, we can’t begin.” – Tea Uglow 2016

I really enjoyed Tea Uglow’s talk. By far one of, if not, the best speaker of Semi Permanent 2016. From her personality to the undoubtedly engaging talk that had me simultaneously attempt to write down as much information as possible while trying to comprehend that information, I was amazed. Her talk centered around Doubt. Subjective doubt, objective doubt, instinctive doubt, every possible kind of doubt was mentioned and how that, as quoted above, without doubt, we can’t begin. Never have I ever realised that doubt is not a bad thing.

Without doubt, we cannot create. Doubt leads to questions, and questions can only further and breed our creativity. This would be the main idea that I took away from Teas talk, as it is true. I always doubt myself and my work, now I need to take that doubt, question it and build on it (and not have a slight mental breakdown…)

Another interesting quote I took away from her talk was that of Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of State for Defence, In February 2002.

“There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know.” – Donald Rumsfeld

Mimi Gilmour

This is awesome. This is tricky. This is shit. I am shit. This is awesome.

I really enjoyed Mimi’s talk and the main thing that I took away from it was to never assume that you are entitled to anything. No matter how talented you are, or think you are, you must always work hard. She showed throughout her talk that she did just that. Other aspects of her talk that I found noteworthy was to always over estimate because something always goes wrong, is more expensive, etc. No matter what this is in reference to, i.e, a business or even your creative work in general. This doesn’t mean that it’s your fault however it’s just life and something we have to deal with, so being prepared is never a bad thing.

Cleo Wade

Getting good at Love. Cleo was a great end to the day. Her talk was amazing and I was having a hetero crush.

Her talk centered around love and self love, straight away she read in the most magical voice one of her poems;

“I knew we were both midnights, yet I stayed up to watch the sun come up with you anyway.” – Cleo Wade

Basically her talk went on about self love a lot and she explained that when she started to love herself she started to treat herself better and from that self love came her best writing. By loving myself I feel like I will be able to create better work.

From this talk, and two-three pages of notes the most important aspects I picked up on were;

okay, and – an almost mantra to say to yourself, and list all the bad things about yourself and move past it.

dismantle who you think you are to become who you want to be

The Bad (okay not bad but not the best)

Peter Briggs

One of the panel speakers on the first day. Okay I didn’t take down much for this guy as I was not truly captivated y what he had to say, but in saying that he was not the worst speaker we endured.

One thing I did write down was to think like an immigrant. Be courageous, hardworking, and determined. Think like an artisan. Be creative. And to think like a waitress. Be kind, and offer good service.

Chris Fjelddahl

I didn’t exactly like this talk and honestly felt a little bored. However I took down notes and actually they are pretty helpful.

The first thing I wrote down was,

Analys things with our brains. Feel things with our hearts.

Feel – Think – Do

He went on to talk about brands and promoting brands. People trust other people, far more than corporations. So create your brand for the people.

He also stated that a brand is formed by the little touches, not just the logo.

It’s about the colour, connectedness, spirit throughout the brand, and finer details. With the redesign of Cathay Pacific it came down to the cutlery, dishes and containers to fulfil the customer’s experience. The connectedness and relativeness was a key factor in designing the THX cinema, by introducing the theme of Star Wars by incorporating the darkness with the cinema and even adding in their own Darth vader cinema chair.

The Ugly (the fell asleep and took no notes kind of ugly)

Cecelia herbert

Diversity + Inclusion x10000000000000

I agreed with Cecelia’s topic and feel strongly about the topic of the importance of diversity. As a homosexual, I definitely agree that diversity is important and can lead to creativity. However, besides from the small section of notes I did take down, I couldn’t actually remember much of what she said.

Dean Poole

“If a tea towel can be a chicken, why do socks have to look like a foot.” – Dean Poole

enough said.

Roland Snooks

algorithm

ˈalɡərɪð(ə)m/

noun

plural noun: algorithms

a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer.